Challenge to Eradicate Child Poverty

Poverty A smiling child
Freedigitalphotos.net/Serge Bertasius
NewsJuly 7th, 2011

The only way that thousands of Welsh children will escape poverty by 2020 will be if their parents have a paid job, with at least one parent working full-time, according to research published by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and launched by the Bevan Foundation on 7th July 2011.  Peter Kenway, Director of the New Policy Institute, analysed the numbers of children that will need to be lifted out of poverty if the Welsh Government is to achieve its goal of eradicating poverty in the next nine years.

Peter Kenway commented ‘The Welsh child poverty target is extremely ambitious. While increased employment has a big part to play in moving towards it, it cannot achieve this target on its own. ‘Full-working’, in which all household members work at least one of them full-time, is not the norm at the moment, but will need to become so.  Even if this lowers the financial pressure on families, it increases the time pressure. A whole range of key services, from child and health care to transport, may need to be extended and adapted to help families cope.’

Gwenda Thomas, Deputy Minister for Children and Social Services, responded at the launch, reiterating the Welsh Government’s commitment to eradicate child poverty. ‘Tackling poverty and social exclusion remains a fundamental priority for the Welsh Government, and I don’t pretend that removing the often complex and deep-seated issues that are associated with social exclusion will be easy.  It requires a shared and unanimous effort that must be borne by all across all levels of Government, Public Bodies and the Third Sector.

Monitoring Poverty and Social Exclusion in Wales 2011 is available at http://www.jrf.org.uk/sites/files/jrf/poverty-social-exclusion-Wales-summary.pdf

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